Free If You Dare
by Lady Altair
Summary: She really is freedom and flash and dangerous reckless youth, and he loves her down to the tread on her tires. Sirius Black dares.


_Free If You Dare_

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* * *

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He leaves the motorbike out at the end of the drive, caressing her battered chrome, her scuffed old seat one last time, trying vainly to suppress the shudder that climbs up his spine.

The mechanic says she's entirely fixable—a few new parts, some new paint and a bit of work and she'll shine like new. But that's work for someone else, now, someone who can bear to scrape out the bits of dried blood from the grooves in the handlebars, can look at her in admiration, touch the leather without shivering, an appreciate the wind in his hair and the wings she gives him, without thinking of what a long, terrible fall she could throw you to, if a spiteful wind caught her.

He's too old to appreciate the freedom, the reckless joy of a good ride. That day is long past, and the old girl has betrayed him.

The old man abandons the bike by the road, with a handwritten sign: _Free if you dare._

He straightens his old black suit and goes to bury his son.

* * *

Sirius Black dares.

She's too beautiful and broken not to. He happens on her by chance, a miscalculated Portkey leaving him a few miles off course, on a rare-used country lane in Lincolnshire. He's too swept away by her scuffed charm, her luring promise, the weathered sign—_free if you dare_, now that's a challenge if Sirius has ever heard one.

A few spare pieces, a couple of handy spells, and more than a few hours in James' garden in Godric's Hollow, kicking around with some butterbeers and tools they really don't know how to use, and she's silvery new, ready to run, ready to fly. There's little mundane about her when he's done, and this machine-made-magic is something wonderful.

James nags him to name her; he's the sort that always named his broomstick…_she's a lady, Sirius. You need something to coo in her ear._

But there's no name for her. Sirius tries, halfhearted, to find something to encompass her sleek loveliness, but there is nothing. She doesn't need a name. She is just _she, _and she is just his.

She really is freedom, and flash, and dangerous reckless youth, and he loves her down to the tread on her tires. There are days he can't be bothered to shave, can't be bothered to drag himself home for a change of clothes, but she never goes without a wax, a wash, whatever she needs to gleam black. He loves her, and she returns it, more loyal and dependable than any collection of stick-and-twigs anyone ever laid enchantment on.

There's only one person he'd ever let take her on his own, and James wouldn't dream of it. _Lily's more than enough woman for me, Sirius, and I think she's the jealous sort, _he claims, petting her chrome apologetically.

_She is a one man bike, _Sirius agrees, laughing. _If she expects a return on that, she's wrong!_

But he never really loves any woman like he loves her; women are too complex, too needy, too easily broken beyond repair. They need too much, need too many things he can't even find for himself. _She_ just needs some oil and petrol and a bit of care to love him; he knows how to do that. And he can break her a hundred times—she can be made seamlessly new after every single accident. He envies her invincibility.

* * *

Hagrid doesn't trust her. She seems small and capricious when Sirius offers her to him, struggles under his weight like a high-strung racehorse, her engine choking obstinately as he revs her up, whining for her Sirius. Sirius laughs hollowly as he gives Hagrid a few last minute pointers on handling her. He reluctantly hands Harry back to Hagrid, running a regretful hand over her headlamp.

_Be a good girl, won't you? _he asks, a wisp of affection managing to surface in his grief-strangled voice. _Just for me, get them there safe. _Her engine smooths under his hand, and she purrs obediently. And safe, they arrive, and Hagrid is sure it is some special brand of magic that makes this flight so peaceful, and it is all because Sirius asked it of her.

She never quite warms to her temporary owner: he's sure he's too heavy, too old, lacking her beloved Sirius' youthful abandon, and he can't begrudge her that. But she does everything he asks, and Hagrid takes care of her for that, does what's needed so she won't fall to pieces, riddled with rust.

But he doesn't have much use for her, can't find much to love in her lifeless, clawless beauty—she's the wrong kind of dangerous, and Hagrid is too heavily set into the ground for her to give him wings.

* * *

_Free if you dare_…

Harry finds the writing etched on the chrome of the front suspension, in the scrawl made familiar by the Marauder's Map. He smiles, running a hand to smudge the flawlessly mirrored chrome.

He sets the helmet (Ginny insists) on the seat and leaves her. He doesn't quite need her wings, doesn't crave that sort of dangerous freedom that is her gift, and _that _seems like a beautiful liberty all its own.

oOXOo


End file.
